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Iran's new ambassador to Bahrain, Hussain Amir Abdullahian, said Sept. 12 that his country had entered into negotiations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on forming a free trade area with Iran, in response to a proposal Tehran initially made Sept. 2. Iran -- not to mention the GCC -- has very little to gain economically from such a deal, but that hardly means any talks would be pointless. In fact, a deal on "trade" could well prove useful for both sides.
The conventional wisdom of the day in the Persian Gulf is that Iran is the ascendant power (a conventional wisdom that Tehran is doing all it can to make a reality). The local perception is that the United States is distracted at best and demoralized at worst. A partial U.S. pullout from Iraq is now a given, and the region is wondering how fast the pullout will come, how large the pullout will be, and whether the pullout will be limited to Iraq.
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